What Have You Learned in Mn3364 Business Financial and Contract Management That You Can Use to Improve Your Work at Tacom (if You Implement It (them))?

What have you learned in MN3364 Business Financial and Contract Management that you can use to improve your work at TACOM (If you implement it (them))?  What barrier(s) exist to implement it (them))?  How can (will) you overcome the barrier(s)?  MN3364 Business Financial and Contract Management has enforced my opinion that there are many interpretations of a contract and that it is important that the Government team understand the contract language, options available during contract management, and present a unified view of the contract.

Obliviously each individual of the Government team members all have different interpretations of the contract language, effective contract management would have to find a common view to share across the Government team members.  Experience, the office each member represents, and knowledge base all influence the individual view of the written contract.  The typical non Acquisition Center Government employee does not have a clear understanding of acquisitions contracts.  Due to this reason a vast majority of them try to circumvent the Contracting Center, primarily due to the inflated amount of time the typical contract and/or contract action takes to put in place.  

In theory each Government team member should be working together and fully understand the end goal of getting equipment in to the hands of Soldiers. The truth is far from this.  Each Government office represented in the acquisition process has their own agenda. Their end goal may be to get that equipment in to the hands of Soldiers as long as their office demands are met.  For example in my office PM Combat Engineering/Material Handling Equipment (PM CE/MHE) one of our User Representatives is known for saying, “I don’t care what your contract says, the user needs….” or “Not my fault your contract has the wrong language, you should have considered…”  Understanding the intention of the team concept, is to have multiple inputs from various Subject Mater Experts (SMEs). The complication that tends to happen is the lack of trust that among team members.  Instead of fostering a team mentality with a common end goal. The mentality of the team tends to fall into the category of “tit for tat” where I gave up on this demand now it’s your turn to give up on your request.  With this mentality taking over the Government team, soon the members develop the sense that they are losing too much ground and not gaining or holding to their office’s agendas.  Once this feeling sets in that representatives goals changes from the common goal of getting equipment in to the Soldiers’ hands to how can I get what I want for my office.  Not to mention the idea that, if I agree too often to the program management office that I’m not representing my office correctly.  Ensuring that the Government team member understand their performance is not measured by how many times they disagree with program management office is key.

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